WrestleMania 37 night two: Three things WWE got wrong

While WWE faced a difficult task in attempting to match the peaks that the opening night of WrestleMania 37 reached, it doesn’t do much to change how relatively mundane the second part of WWE’s flagship supercard felt for most of the night.

Yes, we got plenty of quality action, but compared to the emotional high most fans enjoyed following night one, the follow-up underwhelmed in terms of match quality and some of the decision-making.

So, what did WWE get wrong on Sunday. Well, that’s what we’re here to discuss.

These are three things WWE got wrong on the second night of WrestleMania 37.

3. So many heel champions

With both nights of WrestleMania 37 concluded, we now have a grand total of one babyface wrestler holding a championship on the WWE main roster: SmackDown Women’s Champion Bianca Belair (yes, R-Truth is the 24/7 Champion, but no one cares about that belt). Everyone other titleholder is a heel.

This isn’t to say that all of the heels should have lost their respective matches — in many cases, the heel winning was the right call — but it is a bit jarring to see the company that purports to “put smiles on people’s faces” book this way.

If WWE possessed a full roster of over, credible babyfaces to chase these antagonists, it would be one thing, but WWE’s consistent failures in booking likable foils for them has left the company in a situation where many of these champions don’t have obvious opponents waiting for them now that ‘Mania is over.

Maybe WWE will heat some wrestlers up in the coming weeks, but there’s an equal chance of them only kinda pushing a handful and padding their opulent television and PPV schedule with a bunch of non-finishes and rematches. You know, just like they did last year! Can’t wait for that!

2. Shoehorning in a lazy John Cena reference during The Bellas’ WM appearance

You know, after watching a pair of very good (at least) women’s championship matches during the two-night WrestleMania, it was unsurprisingly frustrating to see WWE continue to define two women who it inducted into its Hall of Fame earlier in the week by the men that they dated (or loosely associated with).

Setting aside how shameful it was that THIS was the best WWE could come up with for Bayley at WrestleMania, having her go out there and suggest that The Bella Twins only interrupted her interruption because they were looking for John Cena (while questionably insinuating that both Nikki and Brie Bella dated the future Hall of Famer, respectively) was a lazy line that was emblematic of all three women’s lazy usage in that segment.

Sure, defenders will argue that it was an “edgy” heel line and that the Bellas gave the heel her comeuppance for the remark, but this isn’t the 1908s. Everyone can safely assume that Bayley was fed that scripted slop, and her regurgitating it to the Bellas only showed fans how far WWE still needs to go when it comes to how it features women on its programming.

1. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt

Thank goodness WWE got this out of the way early. If you have enjoyed the long-running shenanigans “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton and this manure pile of an opening match didn’t cause your enjoyment of this storyline to waver, then more power to you; I’m not here to ruin anyone’s good time (to a point).

For everyone else, you don’t need me to tell you how atrocious this was. In Wyatt’s big return match, the fans wasted no time following the same formula they always do for his matches: pop for the cool entrance, remain quiet and uninvested once the match starts. Oh, and during that entrance, Wyatt’s burnt-up ring attire magically turned into his normal gear after he walked through what looked like the same corridor The Weeknd got lost in during the Super Bowl halftime show. Nice to see WWE handwave away that significant plot point.

And how did this end, after all the fire, goo, telepathy, and evil twins? Well, Wyatt was distracted by Alexa Bliss bleeding black goo, which allowed Orton to hit “The Fiend” with the RKO — the same move Wyatt no-sold two weeks prior — and pick up the win.

So, now we’re supposed to feel sympathy for “The Fiend” because he got screwed out of a win by a woman HE ABDUCED AND BRAINWASHED?

Listen, Wyatt is a talented and brilliant performer, and most of this junk isn’t his fault, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch WWE fail to properly define a character like this in its universe. The company hasn’t gotten this right since SummerSlam 2019, and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it will any time soon.